A Friend Arrives
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day 1817b. It's not Nora who first finds what has happened to Grace but Emily, when she visits her at lunch time. - Sunshine Girls 2 series - 5TH ANNIVERSARY CYCLE, day 11b of 21.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 86th cycle. Now cycle 87!_

**_IT'S THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY CYCLE OF_**_** GLEEKATHON!** - Five years! Five years! *insert flailing* Okay, not quite, but by the end of this cycle, it will have been five years of daily stories (sometimes twice a day! ... and for seven very frightening days a couple years back, three times a day!). It will also be the end of this crazy ride. I started thinking about ending gleekathon months ago, and I wanted to finish my ongoing series before that happened. It made it so I could finish out this fifth year, and it couldn't be any better that this cycle is actually ending on October 22nd 2014, which was the day it began, in 2009... Now here we go!_

**This story is a 'Character Swap' for _Touch & Recoil_, a Sunshine Girls 2 series story originally posted on June 14th 2014.**

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><p><strong>"A Friend Arrives"<br>((Nora (AU!Beth),) Emily (OC), Grace (OC)  
>Sunshine Girls 2 series<strong>

_**Character swap: Emily for Nora**_

Emily had left the book she was meant to read for English over at the Mackenna house. She needed not just the book but _her_ book, with _her_ notes in the margins. And to make matters worse, Grace hadn't been at school that day, so she hadn't been able to ask her. Actually, she _had_ texted her, asking if she could stop by after school and come to get it. Grace hadn't replied. She would have mentioned it to Nora, but Nora would only point out how she'd already nearly lost that book twice since she'd started reading it. So instead of waiting it out until the end of the day, when she knew Nora would be dropping by the house, to bring Grace her homework and see how she was doing, Emily snuck off as soon as their lunch break started. She would go to Grace's house, get her book, sneak in a bit of friendly care for her sick friend, and then return to McKinley like it was no big deal.

She'd had to run as fast as she could to make it to the bus on time, and she'd spent most of the ride catching her breath. By the time she got off the bus and started walking toward Grace's house, she was starving, which made her realize she hadn't actually factored eating into her plan. Maybe she could grab something while she was over there with Grace.

Emily rang the bell, hopping and tapping about in place, looking around, waiting… She only had so much time, and if she missed her bus back to school, she'd be late, and after the last few times, she couldn't afford more tardy notes.

She rang a second time, and still the seconds dragged on without answer. Maybe she was sleeping. Okay, she would ring a third time, and if she got nothing, she'd find that old hidden key, slip in, get her book, and she'd leave again without notice.

After she'd waited about as long as she could, she sighed and moved to retrieve the key. She let herself in, shutting the door behind her. She jumped when she thought she heard a noise from upstairs.

"Grace?" she called. "It's me… I'm sorry, I just left my book here, I think it's in your room?" she moved to the stairs. "Grace?" Her bedroom door was shut, but Emily could see movement from under it, like someone was pacing about. "I thought you were sleeping, I didn't want to wake you, I should have tried texting… you." She'd stopped pacing. "Grace, are you okay?" Emily came to stand at the door, just that slab of wood separating them.

"I thought…" her voice finally emerged from the other side. "I thought you were my mother coming home early."

"Nope, definitely not your mom," Emily assured her. "Don't tell me you're playing hooky. Grace Mackenna, skipping school, that'll be the… day." She'd opened the door. Emily was so startled by what she saw that she took a step back. "Grace, what happened to you, I…" she approached her again, inspecting the bruise which had taken up over a good portion of her friend's pale face. A host of horrible ideas ran through her head. Had she been attacked? Emily had seen her the afternoon before, she'd been fine… She wouldn't have been so flighty if this had been an accident, right? "Someone did this to you, didn't they?" Grace wouldn't look at her. "Does your mom know? She let you stay home today?"

"I waited until she left, called the school. I did my trick," she said this in her mother's voice, which Nora and Emily had been calling her trick ever since she'd first done it. Hearing the dead on impression was always good to get them laughing. "She… doesn't know I'm here right now."

"I won't tell her," Emily quickly promised, figuring out Grace had meant for this to be a secret, which explained why she would have dashed for her room before. "But she knows about the…" she pointed to the bruise. Grace moved away from the door and into the room, and Emily followed. The first thing she saw was Grace's gym bag open on her bed, with clothes and toiletries and a couple of books inside. "Okay, look, I don't mean to pry here, but you're starting to worry me, what's that for?" Grace sat on the bed, next to the bag.

"I've been packing and unpacking it all morning," she admitted.

"And suppose it stays packed, what exactly do you plan on doing with it?"

"Didn't make it that far," Grace mumbled. Emily felt a cold chill all over. She came and knelt in front of the bed, taking her friend's hands in her own.

"Grace, look at me," she begged. When their eyes met, Emily breathed. It wasn't time for her to let her fears take the lead. "Did something… Did someone… Were you…" Grace had been looking at her, trying to understand what she was asking, and when she did, she flinched.

"What? No… No, it was nothing like that," she stood, moving away from Emily again, and as much as this flooded her with relief, it was only one door closed, while so many others were still open.

"Then what? You're lying to your mother, skipping school, you've got a bruise the size of a super grapefruit on your face, and you're thinking about running away, what am I supposed to…"

"I told my mother about Nora and me and she hit me, okay?" Grace blurted it out in the heat of the moment, and she regretted it immediately, turning away from Emily and hiding her face in her hands.

Emily should have lost it right there, too. All the years she'd known Mrs. Mackenna, how much she had loved her, how much she'd wished _she_ could be her mother instead of her own… She could never have pictured her doing anything like this, and now everything had changed. Except she wasn't freaking out; Grace would already be doing that, and she'd have a much better reason to. Emily had something better to do. She had forgotten all about the book part of her excursion and focused entirely on the assisting her friend part. When Grace would finally turn again, she would find the other girl was putting all the items still on the bed from the previous unpacking back into the bag before shutting it.

"What are you doing?"

"Let's get out of here, okay? Your mom won't be here until later, so when we figure out what to do you can just call and leave a message, or I'll come back and slip a note in, she won't know the difference."

"Wait, no, I can't go…" Grace tried to reach for the bag.

"I'm not telling you to run away, but I'm not letting you stay here either, at least not tonight. We'll think of something. You can stay at my house, or…" Grace shook her head. "We'll think of something," she repeated. "I think we should call Nora, it'll be easier with the three of us, we… Oh, I know! Her dad and stepmom are in New York, their house is free. She'll like that plan," she moved to the door.

"Emily, wait, stop," Grace begged, and Emily turned to her. She'd been going so fast; Grace wasn't ready. She put the bag down, moving back up to her friend and hugging her.

"I'm sorry, I just… The thought of you having to stay here like this… I can't believe this is happening to you… Man, now I sound self-centered," she sighed. "Whatever you need, I'm there, okay?"

"I know," Grace promised. This was good, Emily being Emily. Strange as it was, it did make her feel safer, and she really needed that right now.

"If you just want to stay here right now, we can do that," Emily looked back into her eyes.

"You need to get back to school," Grace shook her head.

"They won't miss me for one afternoon. I couldn't pay attention now if I tried." That sealed it. Emily would stay with Grace throughout the afternoon, until Nora's inevitable arrival. It wouldn't be any easier on her, to see what had happened to her girlfriend, and for what reason. But once it was the three of them together, they could come up with a plan. They'd back Grace up every step of the way.

THE END

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><p><strong>AN: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
><strong>**In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
><strong>**always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!**


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